CNET

Some of you may recall that one scene in "Back to the Future II" where Marty McFly travels forward in time to 2015 and plays a shoot-'em-up arcade game. After getting a seemingly great high score, a jaded youth remarks, "You mean you have to use your hands? That's like a baby's toy!" I couldn't help but remember that quote when I slipped on Interaxon's Muse -- a lightweight headset that turns your mind into an input device by converting your brainwaves into digital signals. Read more...

VentureBest

VentureBeat has emerged triumphant from CES 2013, with only one writer stricken with a mysterious convention illness. The past week went by like a whirlwind, but now that we have some time (and distance) away from Las Vegas, we can finally sit back and take a look at what worked best at this year’s show. Read more...

Gearburn

A penny for your thoughts? That phrase could well become redundant if what a Canadian company is contemplating comes true. Why contemplating? Well, it’s 25% there — reading your thoughts (some of them at least) with a mere plastic band around your forehead. When and if the full potential of the Muse is realised, it will make Google Glass look like a dinosaur from some pre-historic era. Believe me that’s no exaggeration, this brainwave monitoring device has all the capabilities of figuring out just what the heck is going on in your mind. Hey, what happens to dirty thoughts, then? Privacy control activists are going to have a field day on this one, I bet. Read more...

Tech Crunch

You may or may not have noticed, so I’ll provide a quick fashion world dispatch: Headbands have been gracing the foreheads of many a stylish person over the past few years.
If a Toronto-based startup called InteraXon has its way, that trend will become even more pervasive for years to come as people buy its own Muse headband — but the Muse is meant to be much more than just a fashion statement. It’s a brainwave-reading gadget that is meant to help you better understand all the complicated ways that your mind works and use that knowledge to improve your life. Read more...

Toronto Star

Ever wish you could make a pint appear simply by thinking about having a drink? It may not be so far out. A thought-controlled beer tap is on display this week in Las Vegas at the International Consumer Electronics Show. “When people focus, the handle goes down and the beer pours, and then when they relax, it actually stops,” says Tracy Chong, vice-president of marketing for InteraXon. “They immediately get it, and they are not intimidated by the technology.” Read more...

Digital Trends

From IndieGoGo to reality, Toronto-based InteraXon unveiled its Muse brainwave headband at CES this year to play mind games with your head. It promises the games are for a healthy cause, of course.
In the future, we’ll all be doing brain exercises that stem beyond your average Sudoku puzzles or memorization games. At this year’s CES, exhibitors want to get inside your head, and Muse brain-sensing headband aims to do just that while providing a place where you can measure concentration levels to train those membranes. Read more...

AARP Tech

Can you pour a beer with your mind? You can – if you wear a headband straight out of Star Trek. Could you use your eyes to scroll through a website on your tablet? You can - if your tablet has a camera and an infrared LED. As technology gets better and better at reading our bodies’ signals, we may not have to use a keyboard – or even touch our computers – to use gadgets in our daily lives. Read more...

ReadWrite

While major hardware makers are busy squabbling over "4K" vs "Ultra HD", the future is quietly creeping in around the edges. A future with implications in the real world - big ones. Really big ones. Think using crowd-sourced mind control to change the color of Niagara Falls and the CN Tower big. Read more...

CBC

It’s not hard to find InteraXon’s booth at the Consumer Electronics Show. Just look for the giant, inflatable igloo surrounded by a crowd of people. While the structure is a familiar Canadian symbol to many attendees of the annual technology circus in Las Vegas, the action in and around it – the harnessing of brain power through a headband known as Muse – is the real attraction. Read more...

Laptop Mag

We’re seeing the future taking shape before our eyes here at CES 2013. Not only do we have fully immersive virtual reality and advanced gesture controls, we’re now interacting with our computers using nothing but our minds. Muse, the brainchild of InteraXon, is a minimalist and stylish brainwave reader that allows you to visualize your own brainwaves as well as interact with your computer in an thoughtful new way. Read more...

Engadget

Plenty of companies are experimenting with thought-reading gadgets, and in the cluttered South Hall here at CES, we came across the folks from InteraXon showing off their Indiegogo-funded "Muse brain-sensing headband." It measures EEG signals from four forehead sensors and two tucked behind the ears, and sends those brain measurements to other gear via Bluetooth. Read more...

BBC

Most video games require nimble dexterity in the hands of the player to achieve success. But Interaxon's Muse headband puts a different part of the body to the test, the brain. The wireless sensor monitors brainwaves, encouraging the wearer to learn how to direct focus or force themselves to relax in order to influence the game. Interaxon chief executive Ariel Garten said she hoped the headband - which will cost $199 - would be launched later this year. Read more...

CBS This Morning

When people say, "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas," they're not talking about the Consumer Electronics Show. The technology-related trade show, held each January in the Las Vegas Convention Center, is not open to the public but CNET editor-at-large, Brian Cooley has the inside scoop on the latest high-tech products that may one day be in your home or office. Read more...

Design & Trend

Muse Headband, released by InteraXon, now is helping human to get closer to the vision of accomplishing a task simply by thinking about it. Coming with InteraXon technology which senses human brainwave and what is going on inside the brain, Muse allows users to control almost anything by thinking. The technology converts brainwaves into digital signals that can be detected by a computer and activate anything electric. Now users are able to control apps, audio and visual devices without the touch of a button. Read more...

TechCrunch

Augmented reality (AR) — the term does not exactly jump off the tongue. But the concepts behind the technology are beginning to change what we think of ourselves, objects and the people in the world that surround us. I am no expert on AR but over the past few months I have seen enough examples of the way mobile devices change our reality to start wondering if what I am looking at is really what I think it is. With Google Glass people will see a data layer that is not visible to the human eye. Through an iOS or Android device, a person can now use apps to provide a different context for playing games, monitoring environments or tracking one’s brain activity. Read more...

ZDNet

Think and you shall log-in. It sounds futuristic, but the technology to do so could be here as early as June 2013. And forgetting a password could become a thing of the past. InteraXon, which develops thought-controlled computing, is releasing a headband sensor device this summer designed to bring brainwaves into computing. While there is not currently an authentication application that works with InteraXon’s Muse headband... Read more...

Dvice

Wearable tech designed to monitor everything from our heart rate to our sleep patterns is becoming increasingly common. However, one group of inventors want to bring that consumer-friendly approach to wearable tech to the arena of brain wave analysis. InteraXon is a Canadian company working on introducing a headband called the Muse, a device that uses a four-sensor EEG (electroencephalography) system to monitor your brain wave patterns Read more...

Mashable

Google Glasses? Passe. Voice-controlled intelligent agents? So over. Controlling the tempo of "Call Me Maybe" with your heartbeat? Please. The future of wearable computing is all about using your noggin. Read more...

Crowdfund Insider

Muse looks like a bent hair band: It’s worn across the top of the forehead and over the ears and has sensors in both locations that monitor alpha (resting state) and beta (active state) brainwaves. The brainwaves are converted to a signal that is broadcast, via Bluetooth technology, to the user’s smartphone. Read more...

IT Business

A Toronto-based startup seeking crowdfunding to launch its next product is offering those who hand over enough cash a way to telepathically communicate with their iPhones and pour themselves a beer. Read more...

Wired UK

A brainwave-sensing headband aims to create more productive ways of thinking by offering wearers the ability to see their brain function in real time. InteraXon, whose previous projects include a thought-controlled lighting system, is currently seeking funding for the Muse headband project via IndieGogo. Read more...

MIT Technology Review

My very first introduction to brain sensors was a distinctly furry one. The sensors involved a pair of electrical cat ears made by a Japanese firm called Neurosky. Perched on your head, the ears would move and wiggle in accordance with your thoughts or feelings—or that’s how the YouTube video explains it, anyway. I recently came across another sensor that claimed to perform a similar brain-sensing task. It’s designed by a Canadian company called InteraXon, which is running an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign to get the project off the ground. They’re calling the headband the “Muse” and describing it as a chic brainwave reader for your forehead. Read more...

Phys.org

InteraXon, a Toronto-based technology firm, has posted a funding campaign on Indiegogo, a crowd source funding site similar to Kickstarter, for a device it calls Muse. Muse is a headband device based on electroencephalography (EEG) sensor technology combined with a sophisticated smartphone app that allows the wearer's brainwaves to be monitored.

Introducing Muse: Changing The Way The World Thinks from InteraXon on Vimeo.

Read more...

The Grid TO

The future is now, at least as far as Ariel Garten is concerned. Garten, a neuroscientist and artist who’s often referred to in the media as The Brain Guru, was at Digifest, an annual digital media festival, at Corus Quay last Thursday to discuss brainwave-controlled technology. “The idea of controlling a computer with your mind sounds like something right out of science fiction,” she said during her 30-minute presentation to a rapt (and somewhat fearful-looking) crowd. “It conjures up images of us controlling robots that take over the world, but it’s actually really accessible.” Read more...

Discovery News

The mind is a beautiful thing, full of mystery and wonder. It's the true window into who we are. Getting to know your mind can be just as mysterious, though, and at times, difficult. A project from Interaxon is claiming to "change the way the world thinks" through its brainwave-sensing headband, Muse. Read more...

The Toronto Egotist

Hogtown based start up, InteraXon has been working in relative obscurity for the past couple of years perfecting the technology of thought-enabled computing. Read more...

The Huffington Post

Your devices may be on the cusp of understanding you better than any human ever could. Interaxon, an Ontario-based startup specializing in thought-controlled computing, has plans to release a brainwave-reading headband, Muse, that will let users track and train their minds. Like Ford's "car that cares" or Nike's FuelBand, Muse is one of a growing number of devices monitoring us in increasingly intimate ways that both offer us insights into how we behave and bring tech companies even deeper into our lives. Read more...

The Next Web

InteraXon wants to read your mind. Well, certain signals from it, and turn that information into actionable data that developers can use to develop applications that you can control with your mind. If that sounds a bit sci-fi to swallow, I have to agree. Taking the call with the firm TNW was a bit skeptical. How does it work, we asked. After the next few minutes it became obvious that we were a bit out our depth. Here’s how InteraXon describes its process, which employs a headset – the Muse – that users... Read more...

Trend Hunter

InteraXon’s Muse headband begins its Indiegogo campaign today in order to raise funds and awareness for its newest product: a brainwave-sensing device that lets you track and optimize your cognitive activity. A leader in the thought-control technology arena, InteraXon has been developing the Muse headband for years, and is now ready to bring the device to market. Read more...

All Top Startups

It is no secret that technology is evolving at an ever-increasing pace and producing some life changing products. Thought Controlled Computing may sound like a distant technology but InteraXon ( a Toronto-based company) is working on a thought controlled computing that makes it easy to control almost anything electric. The company has created a hardware and software platform technology which converts brainwaves into digital signals that are fed into a computer. InteraXon then provides consumers with applications that use these brainwaves to perform activities such as; meditation, gaming, ADHD assistance and other still being developed. Read more...

Extraordinary Women TV

Shannon Skinner interviews CEO Ariel Garten

NeuroGadget

If you were fortunate enough to visit last week’s TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco hopefully you did not miss the unique opportunity to see InteraXon’s secretly developed brain-computer interface headset, a new system that is expected in 2013 only. For the unfortunate masses – including us – who have missed the TC event here is a video interview with Trevor Coleman, COO and Founder of InteraXon, who speaks about the new headset and the importance of measuring and training anything, including our brain. Read more...

Tech Crunch

With the rise of cheap and affordable manufacturing facilities, combined with new sources of financing such as crowd-funding, hardware startups are hot once again. And there is no better evidence of this than a quick dash through the Hardware Alley at TechCrunch Disrupt last week in San Francisco. We started with a new kind of connected coffee maker and ended with a startup that lets you look at your thoughts. Enjoy.

Tech Crunch

Last month, researchers from UC Berkeley, Oxford, and University of Geneva posted results of a joint research study suggesting hackers could hijack a brainwave-reading headset and attempt to uncover sensitive user information – think PINs and bank information. As a long-time member of the Brainwave-computer Interface (or BCI) community, I’d like to shed some light on the study and make an ask of the industry. But first, I want to clear up two important pieces of information. Read more...

Stremor TV

Stremor Evangelist Joe Irvine interviews Trevor Coleman, COO and Founder of Interaxon

The Daily Aztec

Two TEDx events recently took place at UC San Diego and San Diego State. On April 29, a diverse collection of expert scientists, artists, writers and engineers arrived at UCSD for TEDx Del Mar to address the event’s theme, “Envisioning Transhumanity.” Various speakers gathered at the KPBS Public Broadcasting building last Sunday to answer the ever-important question, “What have you discovered?” Read more...

SCOPE Magazine

Ariel Garten is CEO of InteraXon (interaxon.ca), a Toronto-based company specializing in thought-controlled computing. Ariel’s career also includes a research position at the Krembil Neuroscience Centre, years of experience as a practicing psychotherapist, and a stint as a fashion designer featured at Toronto Fashion Week. Ariel talked with with SCOPE’s Abby Plener

SCOPE: What exactly do you mean by “thought-controlled” computing

Garten: Thought-controlled technology allows you to connect your mind to a device and interact with it in some way—either as control, “I’m controlling a cursor with my mind,” or in a way that’s responsive: once the computer knows something about my brain state, my emotional state, it can change in response. Read more...

News.com.au

FORGET using passwords to log on to your computer, needing touch screens to navigate on your smartphone or paying expensive energy bills; in the future your daily activities will create all the energy you need to power your house, biometrics will unlock your devices, and your mind will be capable of controlling them. It’s a bold prediction, but IBM expects such technologies will be in people’s hands in as soon as five years' time. Read more.

Wall Street Journal

It sounds like the stuff of science fiction, but thought controlled computing, literally computers that you can control simply by thinking, are becoming a reality. WSJ's Ben Rooney caught up with the CEO of Interaxon to find out how this all works. Watch the video. Read the blog post.

National Post

In the natural light-bathed lobby of the Telus Centre for Performance and Learning, the concert hall of the Royal Conservatory of Music on Bloor Street, I can barely hear anything over the roar of networking. A gentleman fishes through every pocket of his tweed jacket until he finds a pad of hot-pink Post-It notes. On the top note he writes, “Abraham Heifets,” and hands it to me. “Just Google that,” he says, adding that his makeshift card is, “hand-crafted and locally produced." Read more...

NOW Magazine

On a day which the crowd saw a man with a camera in his eye (filmmaker Rob Spence, aka Eyeborg) and a woman with a brain wave monitor hooked up to her head (Ariel Garten, a neuroscience expert and "brain guru"), the very simple ideas to use different words and admit mistakes seemed refreshingly accessible. Read more...

Co.Design

Alex McLeod makes candy-colored digital landscapes fit for a Princess Peach. Now he’s experimenting with thought-controlled computing to make clouds bounce on the screen by blinking your eye. Over the past year, we’ve seen paintings that look like photographs and photographs that look like paintings. Now, Canadian artist Alex McLeod is making 3-D dioramas that look like landscape photography--if the landscapes were a candy fantasy land where architecture doesn’t bend to natural laws of physics, earth-like substances sprout in unconventional ways, and inflatable sculptures that look like croissants hover in the sky. Read more...

Prismatic Planes HD from Alex McLeod on Vimeo.

Metro News

Metro is excited to be one of the sponsors for this year's TEDxToronto. Leading up to this year's event Metro will bring video introductions to some of the remarkable speakers presenting at TEDxToronto 2011. This week, meet Ariel Garten, CEO and Co-Founder of InteraXon. Read more...

Tomorrow Awards

Trevor Coleman is the CCO of InteraXon, a company specializing in the exploration of commercial uses for mind-computer interfaces.
Tomorrow Awards: Mind-Machine interface seems to be the next logical step after gestural and voice interface, but both of those technologies are still in their relative infancy. How would you characterize the current state of thought-interface technology? Read more...

Vitamin Water

imagine being able to change the music you’re listening to using nothing but your mind. imagine moving images on a screen in front of you just by concentrating on them. imagine levitating, 20 feet in the air, while shooting glitter from your fingertips onto dancing supermodels below… it sounds like something straight up out of a sci-fi novel, but it’s not. we actually did all of those things yesterday, right here in toronto. well… everything but the last thing. thinking about the future causes my imagination to run a bit wild sometimes…

Read more...

Tech Crunch

Throw out your touchscreens, kibosh your Kinects: thought-controlled computing is the new new thing. Brain-computer interface technology has been simmering for years, and seems finally ready to bubble out of research labs and into the real world. Earlier this year, friends of mine at the Toronto art space Site3 built a thought-controlled flamethrower, for fun. (Don’t you hate how it’s always the friends you least want to have the power to project torrents of flame with a flick of their mind who always get it?) Toronto has long been a hub for brain computing, in part because legendary cyborg Steve Mann is a University of Toronto engineering professor. Mann also cofounded the thought-controlled computing consultancy InteraXon, which built the neural installation at this year’s Olympics. Read more...

Games Industry

Interaxon is a Toronto-based company that is developing thought-controlled computing technology. And it’s leading the way in this new space of tech that enables users to control applications though their brain waves. Sounds pretty trippy right? Mind controlled games. The phrase has far-reaching and fantastic implications. But whatever picture these words might paint in your imagination, the reality is very different Read more...

NTDTV

Experts Angle

Using your brainwaves and thoughts to control the environment around you...sounds like something right out of "The Matrix"? Well, it's the way of the future according to Ariel Garten, CEO of Interaxon and mind of a company that is revolutionizing interactive technologies. We met up with Ariel in Toronto at OCE Discovery 2010 to get her thoughts, where her booth even caught the eye of Steve Wozniak, Apple co-founder and OCE Discovery 2010 keynote speaker.

IT Business

InteraXon's COO, Trevor Coleman and Premier Dalton McGuinty discuss the possibilities InteraXon can unleash.

Kempton Lam

Read more....

Toronto Life

Much more conveniently located than a galaxy far, far away, a small tech company called InteraXon on Queen West is developing products that will allow you to control your iPad with your mind. InteraXon uses software originally created by the legendary U of T engineer Steve Mann, who was dubbed “the world’s first cyborg” because of his ingenious wearable computer devices. The company’s thought-controlled computing technology translates brainwaves into digital signals recognizable by a computer Read more...

CBC News

Hands-free video games that rely on brain waves to control the action are being developed by a Toronto company to help people learn to focus or relax their minds. Interaxon, which specializes in "thought-controlled computing," has created games that train the brain to switch between producing alpha waves, linked to relaxation, and beta waves, linked to focusing. Read more...

Geek News Central

It’s no longer sci-fi, you can now interact with technology using the power of your mind (rather than your thoughts being controlled by computers. The system consists of a lightweight headset with two electrodes that detects brainwaves such as alpha and beta waves. Different patterns are associated with different mental states, e.g. concentrating with beta waves and relaxed with alpha, so as your mind changes states an action can be taken. Trivially, you can link your concentration to a light, so while you are concentrating on reading, the light is on and bright, but as you relax and drift off to sleep, the light dims before finally turning off. Read more...

Healthcare Digital

With 3D movies gaining in popularity and a number of 3D televisions coming onto the market in the near future, there are different 3D glasses that are used in conjunction with each type.

3D glasses gauges the depth perception by the human eye but 3D glasses that can detect your mood and will adjust what you're watching according to how you're feeling is something that one couldn’t have imagined.

A Canadian Company however has turned that imagination into a reality. Canadian digital innovations company InteraXon unveiled its latest products incorporating Thought Controlled Computing-a technology that lets users control a digital interface using simply the power of their concentration Read more...

MoCo Loco Design

Via digital artist @ALEX_McLEOD_, the world's first thought-controlled 3D TV experience. The system, introduced at CES last week, responds to changes in the user's brainstate Built with InteraXon's specially modified 3D glasses, this [CES] demonstration offers you the opportunity to immerse yourself in a cognitively controlled experience, further opening the door to next generation games, mental trainers, & connected interactions. Read more...

DailyIndia.com

A Canadian company has created 3D glasses that can detect your mood and will adjust what you're watching according to how you're feeling. Canadian digital innovations company InteraXon unveiled its latest products incorporating Thought Controlled Computing-a technology that lets users control a digital interface using simply the power of their concentration. Read more...

The Next Web

Interaxon is a Toronto-based company that is developing thought-controlled computing technology. And it’s leading the way in this new space of tech that enables users to control applications though their brain waves. Sounds pretty trippy right? Interaxon’s technology uses a sensor to detect your thoughts and is capable of bringing new meaning to the term “user-friendly”. The Interaxon team, that includes neuroscientists, engineers, designers, and project managers will likely make some serious waves this year with applications like Zen Bound. Last week at CES, Interaxon was showing off a demo of its technology working with a new version of the iPad game Zen Bound. Players were challenged to wrap a rope around objects with their minds using the iPad without actually touching the device. Interaxon is the start of exciting new advancements in thought-control.Read more...

CBC News

InteraXon is another Toronto-based startup. The four-year-old company brought a number of employees to CES to walk the show floor with demos of its thought-controlled iPad game. The game, called Zenbound, is available through Apple’s app store, but only in a non-thought-controlled version at the moment. The game challenges players to wrap a rope around wooden models by tilting and moving the iPad around. In InteraXon’s demo-only version, designed with game maker Secret Exit, the physical tilting and movement of the iPad is replaced with mere thought. The user wears a headset that measures alpha and beta brainwaves, harnessing them to control the game. Getting good at it is not unlike playing golf — the secret is to relax and focus. Read more...

Motherboard

One of the cooler techs showed off at the past weekend’s Consumer Electronics Show was a demonstration of thought-processing by InteraXon. Their crazy mind control technology works with a simple headset and iPad. The headphones are equipped with a pair of sensors that sit against the user’s left ear and forehead, forming a circuit that gauges electrical signals occurring in the brain. The signals are relayed to the iPad through an attached Bluetooth dongle. Alpha brainwaves increase as the player relaxes and beta waves jump while focusing. Getting good at Zenbound is thus not unlike playing golf, InteraXon chief executive Ariel Garten says. Read more...

Doc Brown, the crazy inventor from Back to the Future, may not have perfected his mind-reading contraption, but real scientists have. Gamers set aside their joysticks recently to test out a new video game. All they needed instead? The power of thought. InteraXon, a Canadian digital innovations company, was the hit of CES when it unveiled the latest products incorporating Thought Controlled Computing -- a technology that lets users control a digital interface using simply the power of their concentration. Their creations include thought-controlled 3D glasses as well as an iPad game that tests a person’s ability to focus their mind for an extended period of time. Read more...

Manila Bulletin Publishing Company

Brainwave-based technology is finally reaching the marketplace, according to InteraXon, a Toronto-based provider of custom product and experience solutions to clients who want to engage in Thought-Controlled Computing (TCC). InteraXon is showcasing Thought-Controlled Ipad Game and brainwave-enabled 3D TV experience at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, the world’s premier showcase for must-have technologies, next week (January 6-9, 2011). During the CES, the Canadian firm will be debuting a thought-controlled version of the award winning ZenBound 2 iPad game, as well as a brainwave-powered 3D environment created in collaboration with cutting edge Canadian artist Alex McLeod. Read more...

Tech Radar

If you've been following CES you might think the entire technology industry is making tablets, but no – some firms are doing much nuttier things than sawing the keyboards off laptops. We have robot deer, robot staff, modern-day alchemy, thought-controlled games and an iPhone app that tells you if you're a lady. This year's Consumer Electronics Show has barely begun and we've already found the tech that's hard to top: brain-controlled iPads. As New Scientist reports, Canadian firm Interaxon will be showing off a thought-controlled version of the Zen Bound iPad game at CES this year. Read more...

The Escapist

What do you do when touchscreens just aren't future-y enough anymore? Start controlling your iPad with your brain, that's what. That's the idea that Toronto-based company InteraXon had, anyway. After making waves at the 2010 Winter Olympics for allowing people to control the lights on the CN Tower all the way from Vancouver via a thought-reading headset, the company turned around and started applying its thought-control tech to gaming. Read more...

New Scientist

Touchscreens? So two years ago. Gesture recognition? How 2010. Everyone knows the future lies in thought-controlled interfaces At least that's what InteraXon, a tiny Toronto startup, is hoping to convince attendees of at this year's Consumer Electronics Show. The company, which made waves at the 2010 winter Olympics by allowing users in Vancouver to control the lights on the CN Tower in Toronto with mere thought, will be showing off two new applications for its mind-control technology at the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. Read more...

InteraXon's downtown headquarters on John Street. Photo by D.A. Cooper/Torontoist.

Torontoist

Telekinesis—the ability to move matter through thought alone—has long served as fodder for comic books, late-night cable specials, and drug-fuelled fantasies. But aside from the occasional shiftless Star Wars nerd faced with a chicken wing just out of arm's reach, it’s not something most of us take seriously.

Why then did executives from Boeing and Bombardier, attending a demo presented by Toronto-based tech start-up InteraXon, recently test out an in-flight entertainment system for passengers to control with their minds?

Read more...

Wall Street Journal

One of the most (no pun intended) thought-provoking presentations at the recent LeWeb conference in Paris was that by Ariel Garten, CEO of Toronto-based Interaxon. Her company is a world-leader in thought-controlled computing. This is the stuff of the future. With a single, and relatively discreet, sensor attached to her forehead, delegates at the Paris-based event could tell if the 31-year-old Canadian was either relaxed, or concentrating. The sensor detects her brain’s alpha and beta waves and Interaxon software interprets the signals. Read more...

CNET

Ever found yourself struggling to stabilize that mobile device for optimum in-flight entertainment? Toronto-based Interaxon says it may have an alternative in the form of thought-controlled in-flight games that let you keep your hands (and gadget stands) tucked away. Yes, soon enough, you may be playing the likes of Mario Kart on your way from coast to coast--with brain power alone. Read more...

Globe and Mail

It may sound like science fiction, but using your brain waves to control the environment around you, like the lights in your home or even your toaster, is already a reality. One Toronto-based company has developed a system called thought-control computing and it's exploring a range of commercial opportunities that include screens on airplanes and video games. Read more...

Slashgear

When I was a kid I figured that by the time, I had kids we wouldn’t need things like remote controls and light switches. We would just think we wanted them on and they would come on. There are a few thought-controlled devices on the market, but we still have to use remotes to change channels on the TV Read more...

CBC

People are using the power of their thoughts to light up landmark locations thousands of kilometres away, thanks to a technology being demonstrated at Ontario's Olympic pavilion in Vancouver. In what developers say is the world's largest thought-controlled computing installation, participants are changing the colours of the nighttime lighting displays shining on Niagara Falls, the parliament buildings in Ottawa and the CN Tower in Toronto Read more...

London Telegraph (Blog)

Tripping the light: fantastic

I’m being told to empty my mind as I sit with a headset on with four electrodes – three on my ear and one on my forehead – in front of a giant screen. On a small monitor attached to my seat, I see lines that represent my laidback alpha brainwaves drop steadily down to the bottom of the screen (ah, so all that yogic downward-dogging does actually calm you).

Now I have to ramp my brain up again: I’m directed to start concentrating hard as I stare at a live screen of the CN Tower in Toronto (I could have chosen Niagara Falls or Ottawa’s parliament buildings). As my beta brainwaves go to work I make the 1,300 LED lights around the structure spin – and, not to show off, but I mean Whirling-Dervish spin. Read more...

The Huffington Post

Thought-Controlled Lights At Olympics: 'Bright Lights' Installation Lights Up Niagara Falls

Thought-controlled lights illuminating Niagara Falls during the winter Olympics? Maybe this will cheer up the Vancouver locals apparently dreading the upcoming games.

Toronto-based company InteraXon (which specializes in thought controlled computing) is planning an installation where visitors will be able to control live light shows at Niagara Falls with their thoughts, from Vancouver. The project, Bright Ideas, is described as the the wold's largest thought-controlled experience. Read more...

Torontoist

CN Tower Now Subject to Olympic-Goers' Mind Control

If you're in the mood to feel an overwhelming sense of power, hop on a plane and go to the Ontario Pavilion at the Olympics in Vancouver. There, you can control the lights on the CN Tower with your mind. Yes, that's right: with your mind. Read more...

CNN

Story Highlights

• Canadian company creates "largest thought-controlled computing installation"
• Visitors to the Olympics use brainwaves to control the lights at 3 major Canada landmarks
• People put on headsets and increase lighting by thinking about it, company explains
• Landmarks are: Toronto's CN Tower, Ottawa's Parliament Buildings and Niagara Falls

Read more...

Popular Science

Heading to the Olympics? Don't Leave Without Controlling the CN Tower's Lights With Your Mind

It wouldn't be the Olympics without distractions; the 2006 Winter Games in Turin had their Austrian doping scandals, and the most recent Summer Games in Beijing were punctuated by an epic opening ceremony followed by rampant media censorship. Not to be outdone, Canada's Bright Ideas installation will allow visitors to the upcoming Vancouver Games the chance to control lighting installations at major landmarks in faraway Ontario using only their thoughts. Read more...

Metro - Sweden

Styr ljuset i Kanada med din tankekraft

Genom att bara använda sina tankar kan besökare på vinter-OS genomföra stordåd. Belysningen på CN Tower i Toronto, parlamentet i Ottawa och Niagara-fallen kan styras med tankekraft från Ontario Pavilion. Read more...

Vancouver Sun

Tech startup takes mind-controlled computing out of science fiction and into real life

If you're planning to be at the upcoming Vancouver Olympics, take time to stop at the Ontario pavilion and give a thought to tech startup InteraXon.

That thought could be about lighting up Niagara Falls. Or the CN Tower. Or Ottawa's Parliament buildings.

Mind-controlled computing has come off the pages of sci-finovels into real life and Toronto-based InteraXon is at the Olympics with the hope that demonstrating the technology to a world audience will help move it into the mainstream. Read more...

Korea IT Times

The Winter Olympics has the Largest Thought-Controlled Computing Installation Experiment

How many ways can you turn on the lights? The most common ways are turning a switch, clapping, or using a remote control. What about just by thinking about it?

During the Winter Olympics in Canada this month, a Canadian company called "InteraXon" is doing an experiment, in which the Olympic "visitors use their brainwaves to control the lights at three major landmarks in Canada, such as Niagara Falls." "When people put on the headsets and find themselves increasing the brightness of the lights by just thinking about it, you can almost see their brains explode," says Trevor Coleman, the chief operating officer for InteraXon. Read more...

Ottawa Citizen (Blog)

Ottawa Goes to the Olympics

Ontario House offers free admission to the general public in order to experience Ontario. With a daytime capacity of 450 people, visitors to Ontario House will be able to change the nightly illumination of three of the province's major tourism icons-the CN Tower, Niagara Falls and Ottawa's own Parliament Buildings-utilizing innovative new thought-controlled computing technology designed by Toronto-based firm InteraXon. After donning special headsets, guests will be taught to use their brainwaves to control the three light shows taking place in Ontario, over 3,000 km (1,864 miles) away. Read more...

CiNEHEARTECH - Germany

Kontrolle mit gedanken

Aber was ist für uns Menschen die intuitivste Steuerungsmöglichkeit? Steuerung nicht unserer Gedanken, sondern durch die Gedanken. Oder um genauer zu sein über elektrische Potentiale die sich über der Kopfoberfläche ableiten lassen. InteraXon, eine kanadische Tüftlerschmiede, möchte dieses Jahr das o.g. Konzept pünktlich zu den Olympischen Winterspielen in Vancouver im großen Stile vorstellen. So haben Besucher des Ontario Pavilion die Möglichkeit mit einer Vorrichtung ähnlich einem EEG (Elektroenzephalografie) und ihren Gedanken, Live-Lichtershows an verschiedenen Stellen Kanadas zu steuern. Read more...

Wired

Along with the figure skating, ice hockey and snowboarding, another event will compete for attention at the Winter Olympics in Canada this month. A Canadian company has created what it calls the “largest thought-controlled computing installation.” It’s an experiment that lets visitors to the Olympics use their brainwaves to control the lights at three major landmarks in Canada, including Niagara Falls... Read more...

Globe and Mail

Last summer, employees of the small Toronto tech company InteraXon were sitting in their Dundas Street West office, conjuring ways to exploit their mind-controlling technology. Maybe they could use their brainwave sensors to build some kind of telekinetic musical instrument made with singing glass bowls? Or a thought-driven heat lamp? Read more...

Gizmodo

Figure skating? Please. The main attraction for many visitors to the Winter Olympics will be an installation letting them control the lights at Niagara Falls with their minds. That's right: we're all telekinetics now. Of course, anything seemingly this amazing requires some hedging. The Bright Ideas installation by Toronto-based company InteraXon doesn't let you decide what color the lights should be or how brightly they should shine, and it can't tell if you're specific thought is, say, "Lights, I command thee!" Read more...

InteraXon on the Business News Network

You can watch the video here or on BNN's site.

Function Meets Brainwaves:

InteraXon featured in Society of Women Engineers Magazine

Earlier this year Society of Women Engineers Magazine profiled InteraXon partner Ariel Garten in their cover story on women working in the field of wearable computing.

You can see us on the cover or read the full article.

CTV webMANIA

CTV featured InteraXon and their Star Trek themed brainwave game in their national news broadcast's webMANIA segment earlier this year.

You can watch the video here or on CTV's site.

Thought-Controlled Computing

Power of the mind drives technology

InteraXon team harnesses brainwaves to operate video games, gadgets and even levitating chairs

The Toronto Star
Feb 26, 2009
By: Joseph Hall

While they ready the chair you can levitate with your mind, there's time for a little concert ...

Water squirts and pools on the floor as Steve Mann's fingers fly across his "hydraulophone," coaxing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" out of the tadpole-shaped instrument.

"It's sophisticated frolic," says Mann, creator of the hydraulophone, the water organ.

Mann is part of a team behind a little piece of techno Neverland at work on Dundas St. W. In the cluttered offices of InteraXon Thought Controlled Computing, a host of Tinkerbell-worthy gadgets are taking flight.

"It's a pretty creative atmosphere," says lead researcher Ariel Garten, about the fledgling firm. Perhaps the most thought-provoking of the projects being pursued at the funked-out facility are the games and gadgets that can be manipulated with the mind.

Your mind can even levitate a chair and influence the accompanying sound and music, Garten explains.

To run the mind-controlled devices, users have electroencephalograph sensors. These sensors pick up the tiny electronic pulses — microvolt in intensity — that buzz like subatomic bees across your head. The pulses are the signature signals of brain activity.

All of our thoughts, movements, and states of mind are the products of neurochemical cascades that run along neurological pathways in the form of electronic impulses.

"The summation of all this electrical communication can actually be read outside of your brain," says Garten, an accomplished artist and fashion designer, who also trained in neuroscience. "And outside your head the amassment of all this electrical activity is summed up ... and you can read the general trend of your brain."

The specific "trend" of impulses the InteraXon team capture are Alpha waves, which are generated when the mind is "blissfully, calmly" relaxed, Garten explains.

"So you have to relax," she says as you sink back into the cushioned chair, which dangles on a chain from a ceiling missing a few tiles.

Breathe deeply and slowly, think of ocean waves. And on a computer screen before you, a line measuring your Alpha wave output begins to spike as you will your mind to relax.

When you're calmed down enough to push the spike past a tripping line, an electronic winch begins to lift the chair.

"So, it's a really nice metaphor for a kind of meditative state," Garten says. "Everybody has always dreamed that as you meditate you could ... levitate yourself."

As metaphors go, it may be nice imagery. As a practical matter, it results from InteraXon's painstaking software programming that allows it to capture the Alpha waves, isolate them from all other electronic noise — from other computers, cellphones — and amplify them into a usable electronic signal.

"All of that is nullified and we're just getting your pure brainwave in a way that's meaningful," says Garten. And with that isolated brainwave, Garten says, anything that can be plugged in can conceivably be manipulated by Alpha activity.

InteraXon's main goal, Garten says, is as lofty as the chair.

"We're here to change the face of thought-controlled computing," she says. "(It's) becoming much more common and it's really the breaking point for this technology."

Garten describes the company as a "start up" that launched a year ago. It has five partners, who initially financed the company themselves, but buzz about their work has attracted willing investors.

InteraXon is actively developing commercial games and other gadgets for a general market.

The technology also has obvious implications for people with physical impairments, from those who suffer from such degenerative diseases such as ALS and Parkinson's, to those with spinal-cord injuries. But InteraXon's focus is to bring the technology to the general public.

And as interest heightens and technology is created — in the form of computer games and other gadgets — the sophistication will grow and prices fall, Garten predicts.

It's this technology-price cycle that will bring thought-controlled computing to the field of assisted medical devices, says Tom Chau, who holds the Canada Research Chair in Pediatric Rehabilitation Engineering at Toronto's Bloorview MacMillan Children's Centre.

Chau's Bloorview team creates devices to help severely disabled kids interact with the world.

"Of course, the more this kind of technology gets developed, the more useful it will be for our needs," says Chau.

Thought-controlled computing no longer Star Trek fiction

IT Business
May 19, 2009
By: Brian Jackson

When Trevor Coleman's friend threw a Star Trek convention, he could have slapped on some pointy-ears for a costume and attended like most fans. Instead he contributed a brainwave-controlled video game straight out of an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Toronto-based InteraXon had developed a system that measures brainwave activity using electrodes held in place with a rubber headband, then converts those readings into an output that can manipulate a computer. It's a little bit different from using a mouse and keyboard.

The Star Trek convention was perfect for the technology's first public debut, Coleman says. It just took a graphical interface made to approximate one seen in Star Trek episode The Game.

"By entering and leaving particular brain states, you can control a seat vibrator that gives them tactile feedback," he says. "Also, the video image and the game are controlled with your mind alone."

InteraXon demonstrated their technology at the Premier's Innovation Awards on Tuesday. Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty slipped the rubber band and electrodes onto his head and shot a few discs into a moving cylinder -- the object of the game.